I'm NOT a homophobe (quite the opposite infact), but his orientation does, in many ways, reflect in this film. He tore Juliet's part to shreds! Were are all her beautiful speeches that make you emphasise with the character? He turned her into a whiny bitch... All the focus was on the Zac Efron lookalike Romeo.
What the hell's wrong with expressing yourself?
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I am so tired of hearing Leonard Whiting called a Zac Efron look-alike!
Leonard was born decades BEFORE Efron! Efron is a WHITING LOOK-ALIKE!
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Well said.
But I'd take it a step further - they don't look all that much alike. Only a blind person couldn't tell them apart.
Personally, I'm so tired of these "she looks like" threads (they are almost always about women). In the vast majority of cases, the people named don't look alike at all. There might be some resemblance in a particular photo or role (where actors are made up), but I've seen comparisons between people that have different body styles, people with significant height differences, where one has freckles and the other doesn't, and so on and so on. It takes more than a slight facial resemblance to make someone "look like" someone else.
HAVE YOU NEVER READ SHAKESPEARE? Almost every play has a scene with: Two men kissing -or- a son and mom in bed -or- some kind of incest like brother/sister.
If anything Zeffirelli and other movie adaptations are very very tame compared to the original source material Shakespeare gave us.
I disagree! Efron looks NOTHING like Leonard Whiting! He might resemble some of the boys who were popular back then IF he has his hair longer. He's sort of similar to a few of those who were in teen magazines, but he most certainly is NOT in Leonard's class!
I, too, weary of the so-and-so looks like so-and-so, especially when it is said that someone from the past looks like the present-day person. No! It's the other way around! And, usually the comparison is completely wrong. I've seen some of the most ridiculous suggestions of "look-alikes"!
(W)hat are we without our dreams?
Making sure our fantasies
Do not overpower our realities. ~ RC
Also - Leonard Whiting beauty is naturally his own. Zac Efron had a nose job, which I must admit definitely improved his looks and I am sure helped his acting career.
shareI have to confess that I've seen only pictures of Zac Efron and about 15 minutes of a movie~enough to be able to say that, at no moment, was I reminded of Len. This Zac is teen-magazine cute (or was) but definitely not in the league of our Romeo.
I still recall the moment when he appears on screen. I was among the many girls in the audience that heaved a collective sigh! It swept the theater and made our male classmates look at us questioningly. I don't recall if they reacted the same to Olivia, but I do know from the things they said later that she was their dream girl. Opposite to a claim some poster made on the board, we never spoke of that scene. We definitely were not sex-obsessed as Gen XY obviously is. There still was so much innocence, and Romanticism was in our nature.
The bedroom scene was the first time I had seen male nudity. I was a very shy and naïve teenager who wouldn't go on a date for at least two more years. So, I should have been shocked and embarrassed, right? Instead, I thought, "He's like a statue that has come to life!" He was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen! When I watched that scene again last night, I thought the very same thing that I did as a teen though now I've seen nude scenes in other movies. (As impossible as it might be believed, I've never seen nudity in "real life". So, Leonard provided the ideal image.)
When the Leonard Whiting club I belong to has pictures of his present-day self, he still looks so beautiful to me. I'm not idealizing, as I myself am decades older, too. This isn't an instance of not letting go of that image. After all, Olivia still is so beautiful. If someone did yet another version of the play (nothing like that BL atrocity!), wouldn't it be wonderful if they played the respective parents?
Silly me!
(W)hat are we without our dreams?
Making sure our fantasies
Do not overpower our realities. ~ RC
Thought about Zac Efron too!! ^^
Overall I didn't like that version much.
I thought most of the young men were droolworthy. I hadn't realized Zeffirelli was gay.
shareI hadn't realized Zeffirelli was gay.
Me either. Ewww...
Well said, Weber4278!
shareAgreed.
"A stitch in time, saves your embarrassment." (RIP Ms. Penny LoBello)
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That's why I love the first part of this movie, but I really can't stand the second part.
when Romeo and Juliet first meet and they have their confessions of love at the balcony, they do a great job of acting and delivering their lines. But after Romeo and Juliet get married, and all of the "drama" starts with the many killings and Juliet is forced to marry, they both just cry and whine ridiculously and it seems overacted. Even Romeo's death seems too much.
So the second half and the end of this adaptation is just really not enjoyable for me to watch. And that's why it's not my favorite adaptation.
This seems like an overstatement. There is virtually nothing 'homoerotic' about this take on "R and J". If Zefferelli wanted to make art that was some sort of 'homage' to young men, wouldn't that require that no females have any kind of prominent role at all?
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